THE SPIRIT LAKE MASSACRE AND THE SANTEE SIOUX UPRISING

Compiled by Ed Perley from Articles by Jim Perley for the Logan Observer newspaper
Reproduced with the permission of the author and the publisher.

The Gathering Storm

The Horse Creek Treaty of 1851 was intended to pen the Indians on
reservations and make them dependent on the United States for their
livelihoods. In time, their dependency was supposed to turn them into good American
farmers and tradesmen with little memory of their native cultures. Their
situation proved to be more complicated. Some acquiesced and accepted aid until it
proved to be insufficient for their needs. Then, they had no choice but to leave
the reservations for food.
Others felt no obligation to obey the terms of treaties they did not
sign.
Their attachment to land and ways of life dating back thousands of years
was stronger than suspicious blandishments from pale skinned interlopers.
Whites continued to signal through their actions that they did not have the Indians' best interests
in
mind.

General Harney exacerbated a delicate situation when his troops attacked
an
Indian camp to avenge the troops who died in a conflict known as the Battle of the Mormon Cow.
His soldiers attacked a village and killed scores, mainly women and
children. They took others prisoner. Harney declared it to be an object
lesson the Indians should never forget. The Indians remembered, but they
learned a lesson different from what Harney had intended.

While mutual hostility simmered on the plains, families from Milford,
Massachusetts settled in Dickenson County, Iowa. Though they were far west of
military protection, occasional bands of Indians traveling through did not
concern them. An unfortunate confluence of events, unknown the to the
settlers, threatened danger. White settlement had driven much of the game
from eastern Minnesota Siouan hunting grounds, and the villages were
heavily
in debt to the whites. Eventually, they were forced to sell their land and
move to a reservation.
Many Indians refused to move and foraged on their traditional lands.
Others
joined them when government food shipments were spoiled or inadequate.
Government agents and others cheated the Indians. Resentment was palatable
but unfocused. Enter Inkapaduta.

As the Iowa History Project and David l. Brestow wrote, Inkapaduta was
tall man of about sixty. His face was scared from small pox, and the past
had made him bitter. Several years earlier,his brother, Chief Sintomadat
traced stolen horses to Henry Lott, a whiskey trader. Lott and his son
escaped the Indians, but they became separated, and his son froze to
death.
Lott vowed revenge. He and his friends axed Sintomadat and nine women and
children of the family to death.

Inkapaduta became chief and at first trusted the white judicial system to bring
justice. He reported the crime to the army at Fort Dodge, and a court pressed
charges. Lott fled to California, but prosecutors made little effort to find him.
Actually, even if they had tried, finding Lott would have been a very difficult proposition.
Inkapaduta was angry, and the final straw came when the prosecuting
attorney nailed Sittomaduta's head to a pole over his house. Inkapaduta
vowed revenge.

The winter of 1856-57, considered one of the worst since whites moved to
the Midwest, took matters closer to disaster. It brought starvation and
death to whites and Indians alike. Even the deer and elk died. Starving
Indians under Inkapaduta's
command moved south to Smithland where they hunted
surviving deer and elk. Local whites became alarmed and accused the
Indians
of stealing corn from their cribs. To his mind Inkapaduta was only hunting
on land his people had owned for generations. The whites, not his people, were the
intruders.

Armed vigilantes surrounded the Indians and demanded they leave.
Inkpaduta replied they meant no harm and were traveling toward Harrison County and
then on to join the Omahas. Fearing an attack, the whites confiscated the
Indians rifles and let them leave. Perhaps Inkapaduta
also was afraid of an being drawn into a fight, or perhaps he was hatching darker plans. After a day or so, he and his followers changed course and moved up the Little Sioux River toward Spirit Lake.
Meanwhile, isolated families in Dickenson County did their chores and
warmed themselves beside their fires. They entertained themselves during the dark
winter nights, unaware of the coming disaster.

The Indians, under the leadership of Inkapaduta,
stole weapons and killed livestock near Cherokee and
Peterson. The frightened farmers let them take what they wanted.
They tried to mollify the Indians as stories of murderous savage
attacks spread through the neighborhood. After he was satisfied they
had collected enough supplies, Inkapaduta
led his people farther north
toward Spirit Lake.
When they arrived in the neighborhood, residents of the Iowa Great Lakes
were not especially worried. They were used to Indians. As the hard
winter continued through March, the settlers assumed the Indians were
merely hunting for food. Their cabins were too isolated to hear news of
intimidation and theft further south.

The Massacre

Inkapaduta arrived at the Roland Gardener cabin near Lake Okoboji to
demand food and ammunition. Such encounters were not uncommon, but
Roland sensed something more sinister that time. The family gave the
Indians what they demanded. Then Gardner and an Indian struggled over a
powder horn. Another warrior raised his rifle after two neighbors
arrived. One of the men pushed the Indian's rifle away, but he didn't
press the matter. The Indians left.

Gardener was alarmed and asked the two neighbors to warn the other forty
or so settlers. At three o'clock, two shots rang out as the Indians
killed the two men. Gardener was certain an attack was imminent and
decided to barricade the door. At least he could kill a few Indians
before they murdered the family. Mrs. Campbell demurred. She argued they
could still avoid a fight if they demonstrated their good will and
shared more food with the Indians. She believed the Indians were reasonable people
suffering like the whites from an unusually harsh winter.

Inkapaduta
and several warriors returned in the evening and demanded
flour. As Mr. Campbell turned to open the storage bin, a brave shot him
in the back. His thirteen-year old daughter Abbie sat quietly in a chair
as she clutched her sister's baby. She watched as men dragged
her mother, brother, sister and others one by one outside and heard
them beaten to death. After what must have seemed like an eternity, a
man snatched the baby from Abbie and killed it. Then, they took the
terrified girl along on their murderous errand.

That evening, Inkapaduta's Dakota and Yankton Sioux held a war dance.
After that, they picked off each of the unsuspecting families. Abbie Gardner
was nearly catatonic. She had just watched Inkaptutah's
warriors kill her family and knew she might be next. They took her with them to
the Mattock's. Mr. Snyder had hurried over there after hearing gunfire. Dr
Horiatte and Mr. Snyder returned fire as the Indians attacked, and they
died with their rifles in their hands. A couple at another cabin fought
on though they were mortally wounded. The husband fired as his wife stuffed rags on his chest to stop the bleeding. Then she killed an Indian she saw through a cabin window. The
tribe placed the dead warrier in a tree as was their custom.

Before the day ended
at least forty settlers were dead. Some had defended themselves and killed
perhaps fifteen or twenty Indians. Two women and the girl Abbie were taken prisoner. The
Indians gave them moccasins and ordered them to braid their hair and
paint their faces as Dakotas. They ordered their prisoners to chop wood,
carry packs, and cook food. But food was scarce and two or three days
passed between meals. The group struggled through ten to twenty foot
drifts and icy streams during the long march to southwest Minnesota.

Once reunited with the Dakota tribe, Inkapaduta convinced them they had
to extirpate the white usurpers or face destruction. It was a battle for
their ancestral land and freedom. The warriors caught present day
Jackson, Minnesota and New Ulm by surprise.It was over by nightfall, and the Indians moved west. Soldiers
arrived to bury the dead and to capture Inkapaduta's warriors. They made
good time on a trail of smoldering campfires and goods left behind to
speed the Indians' departure. That is, until the government found other
work for them. The detatchment was sent to Utah to quell a Morman
uprising.

One of the captives, Mrs. Sharp, recalled a rescue detatchment was nearby as
they camped in a ravine. An Indian guard watched from a tree as others trained their
rifles on their prisoners. Should they be discovered, the white women
would be first to die. Fortunately, the soldiers moved on. Fearful of
capture, the Indians immediately left. They marched non-stop for two days
and nights.

Inkapaduta had no intention of taking part in this war. He led his band and four
female prisoners across the Big Sioux River into South Dakota . Lydia
Noble grew ill and was unable to carry her load. The Indians threw her
into the river, but she climbed out on the other side.
Abbie watched an Indian beat the woman to death. Later,
Elizabeth Thatcher decided she was better off dead and suggested she and
Abbie drown themselves. Abbie refused. She had a story to tell, and she
was determined to tell it.

News of the Dakota and Santee Sioux uprising reached Fort Dodge with force
of 9/11 attack news generations later. The massacre was equivalent to
wiping out most of New York City, given the ratio of dead to survivors in a
sparse population. Volunteers set out to
avenge the killings.
Though it was March 25, the worst winter in memory continued. Soldiers
trudged through drifts fifteen to twenty feed deep. Fourteen men suffered
from frost bite as the brutal weather converted their rescue mission to a
struggle for survival. Rather than fight Indians, the soldiers became a
burial detatchment when they made it to Dickensen County.
What they found there probably caused many of them to wonder why they had come.

Each cabin held families who had died violently together. The
soldiers exhausted themselves digging through deep snow and frozen soil to
bury the dead. They had little time or energy to contemplate heroic
parents who fought to the end for themselves and their children. The men
could only take what was useful as they moved on from one next cabin to the
next.
The militia had eaten most of their food by the time they arrived at the Gardener
cabin. Potatoes and other food stored under the floor were a godsend. It
was enough to get them back to Fort Dodge.

Warm days allowed the men easier passage toward Fort Dodge, until a heavy wet
snowstorm soaked them to the skin. A sudden chill that froze their clothes
solid probably saved their lives. Otherwise, it is likely that hypothermia would have finished them off. A blizzard pinned them down for several days. Once they were underway again, two men, who said they knew a short cut, struck out on their own. A farmer found their bones
fourteen years later.

Western Iowa was primed for disaster. Panic stricken settlers left
the thinly populated counties for refuge in Sioux City. Unfortunately, only 91
soldiers were stationed there to defend Iowa's northern and western
borders. Jumpy families reported ferocious Indians as far south as
Harrison County. No matter that most were innocent hunters, every Indian
was a potential killer in the settlers' eyes. Skirmishes broke out and
during one, white attackers fled for their lives when a superior force
overwhelmed them. Fortunately, the Indians, who only intended to defend
themselves, did not press the attack, so no whites were killed in this encounter.

The central government called federal troops east to fight the Civil War
in 1861 and left Iowa vulnerable to attack from the Santee Sioux still on
the war path in Minnesota. The state was virtually defenseless against the
Indians and from Confederate irregulars crossing its southern border.
Iowa's legislature acted quickly. Govenor Samuel Kirkwood approved a
northern and a southern brigade to defend the borders.

Northern troop strength was 40 to 80 vollenteers per unit. Each man
supplied his own horse and equipment. Calvery troops quickly built forts
at Correctionville, Cherokee, Peterson, Estherville, Clear Lake, and
Spirit Lake. Others went up near Sloan, Whiting and perhaps Little Sioux.
If a fort was at Little Sioux, it didn't last long. All trace or memory of
it is gone.

Inkapaduta led his band deeper into South Dakota
to join the Lakota people. Abbie, still a prisoner, dispared of seeing another white person or tree ever again.
But two Christian Indians heard of the
women and pursuaded Inkapaduta to release one woman to prove the captives
were still alive and to facilitate ransom payment. They took Mrs Marble
to the Upper Santee agency where Judge Flandreau paid them $1,000 for
their trouble. Flandreau took Mrs Marble to St Paul and the territorial legislature
appropriated $10,000 for a ransom payment. He and three Indians found the
band near present day Ashton, South Dakota. They struck a bargain, and a
$1,200 payment apiece freed Abbie and the other remaining woman. The other woman had
been killed before the negotiaters arrived.

Inkapaduta later returned to Minnesota and with Little Crow attacked New
Ulm and later southern Minnesota. The Minnesota militia and others crushed the uprising by 1862, and when the
Indians retreated to South Dakota, Iowa disbanded its northern militia.
Settlers tore down the forts for building supplies. The Indian war in Iowa was over, and life returned to normal.
By the time the war had come to an end, over 800 whites were dead and over 100 had been taken prisoner. Up to 90% of the Yankton Sioux had been killed.
The terrorial government conducted the largest mass execution in United
States history when 28 Indians met their end on a huge gallows.

The Aftermath

Once
again, Inkapaduta slipped away. He fought with Red Cloud, Crazy Horse, and
Sitting Bull. Their fight eventually led them to the Battle of the Little Big
Horn. Inkapaduta's strategic skills helped seal General Custer's fate.
His warriors repulsed Major Reno and prevented him from joining Custer
with reinforcements.
He became a mythic figure, almost like Osama bin Ladin. He
inflicted great damage, but he seemed immune to retaliation. Inkapaduta
died in Canada at the age of 74.

Abbie lived a troubled, restless life. She raised two children from two
failed marriages. Eventually, she wrote
her memoirs and bought her childhood home. She converted it into a museum
and built a surrounding gable to hide it from all but paying customers.
And so, Abbie lived out the rest of her days telling her story at $.25 a person in one
of Iowa's first successful tourist attractions.